i sought god while glory waited for soldiersto laugh on the battlefield,

discard their shiny vests and rise, console mothers and tin clouds, explain it was all an idiot’s joke;

but i found myself sick with a curse, contagious red that wouldn’t peel off,wouldn’t depart my dove-skinned shoulders--that seeped through pockets and seams, through flesh, replacing the drama of prayerwith lukewarm gelatin.

and god i found on a barstool,foam on his whiskers, chin steeped in beer.he butchered me with a killer’s grin, said Midas at least had a daughter,could stroke her aureate brow,

and yet he, God, Lord of All Flesh, had corpses for an entourage: sterile angels,sexless virgins, parapets so coldthey didn’t need ice to be cruel.

what reigned in heaven, he said, but death?death eager for a gown of blood,death in colorful windows,singing from steeple bells, sacrificing itself.death the only lover he could touchthat wouldn’t die.

Hiroshima Shadow

i am what i not am,inconsequentialas an ant that atethe last seed.

before i could make good,i looked up at the sky.it was the firstand last thing my lack-of-bodywould ever do.

i am not known to have a name, but it will be said in the futurethat i was prophesied, one of the first burnt.

no one

has any idea what my motherlooked like, or whether by some fluke shesmiled during my fast birth,or even had bones.

for my mothersat exactly where iam sitting and turned her body just so, in the very same way;

and then there was noflesh to beget flesh,no heart to loveor give happiness toa lack-of-child:

i just was.

Love Your Enemies

nothing hurts more than the ache in the lack:to ignore the bloodon shard-sprinkled streets.or people dressed like you,taking slugs in the crossfire, expressions like yours,the one in the mirror,asking the same question:why am i down going down why going why down going down why this?they die near your tan bootsas you watch like murder,wanting to have warm eyes.to cry.but also to be killed,to be shot as you shoot.yes. you yearn for this.and yet you feel nothing, not even your own sick game:how you laugh while exposing your head.the only thing that hurts is the absence of any pain,an immunity to tears.fear the only force that gets through,but it comes like a lost child.

war disfigures everyone.and when you shootyou kill those your mother taught you to love. you aren’t you anymore.you have shot so oftenthe trigger can’t resist,though it knows what you are doing is wrong.

when you have shot awayall the enemies in the mirror,those pieces of yourself, those neighbors you were told to love by God,it will be good.

Soldier Turns Atheist

this embolismblocking his will to pray,

it holds so much bloodthat he can see villages of red,mounds of coagulation.

did God lie to himor was it the President who saidthis was the will of God?

did Freedom really sanction

this?

all this pooling messy pain, disgusting with shrieks.

not like children on halloween,not like a movie.

no.

a real childripped apart, slaughteredinto chunks by a bomb.

pieces of little girlraining down everywhere,splatting to stick.

a wild crucifixion.

one eyeball mashed,the other ten feet away,looking up at the sky like a pollywog,where peace should dwell,

and asking,“is littered meat allowed in heaven”?

Weapon Possessed

bitten by his rifle,the trigger a stingswelling into his finger,

he can’t retreat, only shoot,wherever he goes theytell him to shoot,

and his gun agrees,poisons his kindness,owns him like a scorpion that whips across culture,

between the eyes.

he can’t acceptthis werewolf lifeof murder and being a scared father,

of serving peace but cradlinga metal demon-baby instead--

knowing it wants to jump in and fight, to kick angry in his arms,

get hot, snarl, rage.

and when it is done vomiting deathit goes back to its coffinin a metal locker,

near the picture of his wifeand child.

Hit

what was was fragile. a shard of scream to the jugular.he had no could not compensate.to come back was not to couldn’t be a new start: only trench itch and a mouth of cotton, friends blown to fleshy scripts,sheaves of them in sheets.

there was no did no had nofelt no saw no meant no god.bodies left by the bulldozerin mud that turns red whereeven a worm is great. five worms almost tender, like a girl’s hand. there would no couldn’t kiss a girl again.less fireflies than stars under the battlefield moon.

such secrets in breath! strange that ever would surprise him, or that legs weren’t sticks.bird lying wings cracked back broke by canon roar. sad chirp stomped boot-flattened,last thing couldn’t but musthe had to see.

After A Battle

gunpowdery handsstab up a cliff, hoista wretched soldier to the top;

and he cries outas if granitecut his soul,made him shriek--

hating god or lightor whatever motherbirthed the miracleallowing this torture--

to see but not to know,to feel but not to answerquestions riddledwith bombs and screams.

depravity and pus.

why, you sick Originator,slaughter toddlersfor bankers’ gain?

why encourage hatewhile arsenals rage to employ steelworkers?

why, bloody Gabriel,perch blue-green hopeatop the bayonet of war?

Vet Pain

flashbacks come curt as lightning,a cat-o’-nine across his chest,unseen brands worse than scars.the pain writes an epitaph,compels his heart to readwhen it lurches up.

the fear frequent,every day a mission and he the sarge,too responsible to stay calm.his worry concealed in mumbles,babble like a sculptor’s toolsnever quite forming distant corpses.

bones rise during thrashed sleepto drum in his head,vibrating like gunshots.they know what was done,yet cannot express--

no one sees the gagwar customized for him;and if they didit would be too guilt-ridden, too horror-knotted,to unmake.

The Real

it hurt it hurt it hurtthe lack of heaven in the slow dance of the sky.

the blurbs fairytales peddled and politicians proclaimed,and an entire culture lapped up and thought,

never

even entered the outer perimeter of Truth,or bore witness to the manufactured evilin the pits between its spires.

if there was a god who didn’t on the chains of souls fascinate,she was chastised, marginal,

a swift flimsy iconsaddled with an impossible task:

to make the good strongand nurture trust by sharing her breasts of bread.

real gods had knives--in their mean tongues,in the cut precisionof the fat on their diamonds.

they slashed without law,gutting the quests of the young,swilling the scarlet of war.

the coinage and smearof beauty and city spoke to the truth:violence was the real Jesus.

"Kenny Cole's work is completely current and fresh, and has the smoking gun of sophisticated, 'make you think', power that comes with experience--- the ultimate cocktail!" - Carly Glovinski |